Back Black Rock Bay Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. CHAPTER EIGHT
  14. CHAPTER NINE
  15. CHAPTER TEN
  16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  17. CHAPTER TWELVE
  18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  24. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“If I were lucky, we’d have the bastard in handcuffs right now.” Izzy shook her head. “What I was was sloppy.”

“You should have come and got me.”

There was only a slight scolding in her tone, not nearly what Izzy deserved. It had been stupid to confront the intruder without backup. For a moment, she wished she was alone so she could press the heel of her palm into the wound, bask in the pain of her mistake. Instead, she rolled her shoulders.

“Whoever it was, they got a journal.”

Mia paused, her hands hanging limply. “They? There was more than one?”

“No. I just couldn’t tell if it was a guy or a . . .” Izzy thought about it. “Could have been female. They were slight enough.”

“So you saw enough to rule out some people?”

Nodding, Izzy prodded at the white bandage. Mia had been right. She had been lucky. The wound was only a smidge deeper than a scratch. “Wasn’t one of the big guys.”

There was a beat of silence. “Not Cash then?”

Mia had managed to be casual in asking the question, but that almost gave it away more than anything. Too close, Izzy’s mind took the opportunity to remind her.

“Nope.” Izzy shook her head. “Not the doc, either. Or the bartender.”

“What about the two guys who pulled the vic from the bay?”

Izzy squinted, trying to call up their body types. “Too tall, too fat,” she finally concluded.

Another moment passed, Mia’s fingers tapping against the table as she stared out the window. Then she stilled. “Ellen?”

Slim. Swallowed by a black hoodie. Izzy layered the waitress’s compact frame onto her memory of that first impression in the darkened kitchen. “Yeah. Could have been.”

“Okay,” Mia said, her eyes going to the notebooks scattered on the floor. “Any chance you’d recognize which one he took?”

“Actually, yeah.” She pushed to her feet, the blood rush sending her head spinning. “But I’m not sure how helpful it will be. It seemed more of a desperate Hail Mary than an actual attempt to steal it.”

She reached for her own notes, where she’d been cataloging which interviews were in which of the notebooks—her anal soul giving the number of each corresponding journal to the initials. There had been five in total.

“Was it the one with Cash? And Earl?”

Izzy didn’t answer at first. She went through her logs, twice, before humming low in her throat. “No. It was the one with Lacey Bell.”

Mia sighed, tipping her face up to the ceiling. “Shit.” Her expression was composed, though, when she dropped her chin once more. “Actually, it’s perfect. We’ll go see her in the morning.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MIA